Christianity CRACKDOWN: Bibles set on FIRE and churches ATTACKED

NEW DELHI (Morning
Star News) – Under the influence of Hindu extremists, police and media
campaigns against Christians in Uttar Pradesh state, India have
mushroomed since one such attack sent a pastor into hiding last month,
sources said.

After
false media reports of large-scale, fraudulent conversions of Hindus by
pastor Durga Prasad Yadav in Jaunpur District went viral in July,
followed by false police charges, there have been multiple area reports
of disrupted worship meetings, pastors and evangelists arrested and
Christian leaders fleeing their homes to avoid arrest, sources said.

“They
have stopped believers and asked them to go back home,” a source said.
“Hindu extremist groups are shouting anti-Christian slogans around the
churches in many places in Jaunpur. They are threatening believers with
severe consequences and asking every believer as to how much money he
has been given to convert.”

Christians
have been targeted in at least five cases, four of them Jaunpur and one
in Pratapgarh District, 58 miles away. Four of the cases erupted on
Thursday (Sept. 13).

At
least 12 pastors have gone into hiding since then, a source unnamed for
security reasons told Morning Star News. Pastor Yadav also remains in
hiding, but attendance at his church’s worship services has nearly
doubled since Hindu extremists began targeting him and others using
state and media machinery, sources said.

Those
detained by police told Morning Star News that police are bombarding
them with questions, asking them where they got money to carry out
conversion activities and ordering them to list all pastors and other
church leaders in the area, the sources said.

“Picking
up pastors and Christian leaders after midnight, keeping them in police
custody for 24 hours, is a technique to mentally harass them and to
instill fear in them,” a source told Morning Star News.

A
police officer at the Chandwak police station has been suspended and an
investigation begun against him because he failed to act against area
Christians sooner, according to local newspaper reports.

Sept. 11 Attack

On
Tuesday evening (Sept. 11), police detained seven co-workers of Pastor
Rajender Chauhan. Police released three of them late that night, while
four were arrested and held until they secured bail on Friday (Sept.
14): Ratnesh Kumar, Jiyalal, Rajendra Vishwakarma and Manoj Chauhan.

In its coverage of the arrests, Hindi-language newspaper Dainik Jagran alleged
a massive conspiracy of fraudulent conversion in the area, citing
police sources who allegedly informed the newspaper that many
“influential people” from Mumbai, Delhi and Kolkata had called to secure
the release of the arrested Christians.

“Procuring
bail had become a challenge – there was huge pressure on the
Sub-Divisional Magistrate [SDM] by a Hindu mob of about 250 people,
shouting slogans of ‘Stop conversions’ inside the Civil Court,” an
eyewitness who presented bail papers for the four pastors told Morning
Star News. “The media present in the SDM office told the SDM not to sign
on the bail orders of the four pastors claiming the allegations to be
true against them. And after the SDM signed, they started to shout
slogans louder and protested the decision of bail.”

Pastor
Rajender Chauhan, who is among those in hiding, has faced constant
harassment and opposition for many years. Police detained him in 2003
and in 2007 filed a First Information Report (FIR) against him that left
him in jail for four days before he was released on bail. The court
case against him is still pending.

“Pastor
Chauhan has the second largest congregation in the Jaunpur District,
with 5,000 members attending worship service every Sunday, and thus he
is being targeted,” said the source on condition of anonymity.

Sept. 13Attacks

Local
police on Thursday (Sept. 13) raided the home of Pastor Gulab Chand in
Jaunpur District at 1 a.m. He was arrested on trumped-up charges of
fraudulent conversion activities, sources said.

His church, Bharpoor Jeevan (Abundant Life), has close to 600 members.

The
next to be targeted was pastor Ravindra Maurya of Karmahi village in
Dharmapur block, Jaunpur District. He was observing a fasting prayer
event that night when a mob of Hindu extremists attacked his
congregation. The congregation, mostly women, faced the assailants and
boldly spoke of their faith in Jesus Christ.

The
attackers warned the congregation of severe consequences if they
continued worshipping and left. Pastor Maurya is serving with Jeevan
Marg (Life Way) Charitable Trust.

On
the same day in Englisia village in Madiyahu, Jaunpur District, the
younger brother of the village chief severely beat Christian leader Ram
Milan Gaud, sources said. The attacker warned Gaud against leading
worship services in his house church and ordered him to halt them
permanently or face consequences, the sources said.

Also
on Thursday (Sept. 13) in nearby Pratapgarh District, Pastor Ram Milan
along with two pastors visiting him from Mumbai were arrested after
police raided his home alleging his involvement in fraudulent conversion
activities, sources said.

Pastor
Milan, from Aaspur village under the Devsara police station in
Pratapgarh, was released along with the others around midnight. The
sources said the two Mumbai pastors were ordered to leave the state
immediately.

“They travelled all night to reach the airport and took the early morning flight to Mumbai,” a source said.

The
incidents followed the media reports of alleged conversions by Pastor
Yadav, whose home village of Bhulandih falls under Chandwak police
station. Subsequently police picked up Pastor Yadav’s brother, Jai
Prakash, for questioning on July 23. A group of Hindu extremists
approached the court in early August demanding an investigation, and a
case was registered against the pastors and 271 people.

The
Indian Penal Code sections under which they were charged on Sept. 5
were causing hurt by means of poison, etc. (Section 328), cheating
(420), imputations and assertions prejudicial to national integration
(153-B), defiling a place of worship (295), outraging religious feelings
(295-A), criminal conspiracy (120-B) and inducing persons to believe
that they will be rendered an object of Divine displeasure (508), under
FIR No. 0194.

Charges
of forcible conversion are invoked every month in India with the clear
intention of intimidating Christians into silence, according to Alliance
Defending Freedom (ADF), which undertakes legal advocacy for religious
freedom.

“In
many places, the intimidation is working,” ADF notes in its campaign
celebrating the 70th anniversary of the U.N. Universal Declaration of
Human Rights. “It is a sad irony that all this persecution is happening
in a country with a rich tradition and legal framework supportive of
freedom of conscience and the right to practice, profess, and promote
the religion of one’s choice.”

Article
18 of the U.N. declaration asserts that believers have the freedom
to practice their faith “in teaching, practice, worship and observance,”
ADF notes in its campaign to obtain signatures supporting the Geneva
Statement on Human Rights at www.ImHumanRight.org.

Why Now?

The
clampdown on Christian leaders and churches in the area coincided with
Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s visit to the district on
Thursday (Sept.13).

Adityanath,
who has openly indulged in hate-speech against minorities, has made his
disdain of Christians plain, calling Mother Teresa “a Christian
conspiracy to Christianize India.” The state government does not
acknowledge the presence of Christians in the area, sources said.

“There
is not even a single church building in the Jaunpur and nearby areas,
and not a single Christian family, according to government records,” the
source said.

There are at least 10 mega-churches in Jaunpur District, with about 25,000 people attending worship services, sources said.

The district has a total of 3,313 villages and five towns, and a population of 5 million, according to government records.

The state’s influence on Indian politics is paramount, as it sends the largest number of Members of Parliament in the country.

“Politically,
Purvanchal [the region of eastern Uttar Pradesh and western Bihar
state] is a very important field for politics,” a source said.
“Influential political cream comes from Purvanchal.”

The
source told Morning Star News that authorities have given permission to
the administration to “adopt whatever technique they want to, [in
order] to stop conversion activity in the area.’

The
hostile tone of the National Democratic Alliance government, led by the
Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party, against non-Hindus, has
emboldened Hindu extremists in several parts of the country to attack
Christians since Prime Minister Narendra Modi took power in May 2014,
religious rights advocates say.

India ranked 11th on
Christian support organization Open Doors’ 2018 World Watch List of
countries where Christians experience the most persecution.

ChristianMirror is a an online portal to bring the latest news from the world with a Christian perspective to an audience from around the world. Its your news, entertainment, music website. We provide you with the latest breaking news and videos straight from the Christian World. This informs readers that the views, thoughts, and opinions expressed in the website belong solely to the author, and not necessarily to the ChristianMirror.Net or the owners of the website.